Last month in Los Angeles, Hermès unveiled a symphonic live story of the luxury brand’s latest home collection at The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Titled “Hermès Parade,” the singular presentation enveloped the city’s glitterati in a rapturous narrative featuring dance, acrobatics, and fairy-tale-like set design.
Directed by choreographer Philippe Decouflé, and curated by Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry, Artistic Directors of the maison’s vibrant home universe, the ever-evolving spectacle of 70 non-linear performances shined a light on 400 objects—including sculptural furniture, radiant lighting, sumptuous textiles, and posh tableware—by way of 56 skillful dancers in a sweeping show space.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
“Hermès Parade” Welcomed VIP Guests with Singular Hospitality and Performance
Upon arrival, guests journeyed through a shadowy hallway lit by crimson lights before entering a towering arena with a darkened stage. Servers encircled the room offering bubbly cocktails and California-inspired bites, while mammoth wooden facades appearing as large-than-life moving crates bookended the room, and enormous blocks within the center allowed visitors to perch in anticipation.
The show began with theatrical players emerging from sleek elevators, carrying crates branded with “Hermès Parade” emblems into the space, spotlights following their every deft and ballet-like gesture. As they encircled the stage with seemingly limitless small and large boxes wrapped in prismatic tape, orchestral music conjuring the jubilance of a circus ebbed and flowed, and the crowd both seated and standing within the story itself was drawn further into the mesmeric presentation.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
An Imaginative Celebration of Art and Design Unfolded in Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar
In a pure celebration of art and design, the expressive dancers dressed in vivid blue overalls and white undershirts began to meticulously unpack the dazzling objects from their traditional vessels. Crates were shifted from one side of the stage to another, forming soaring vignettes of emotion and movement, as well as fantastical seating arrangements for guests.
As an imaginative catwalk began to form, appearing to float above the floor, the music took on an electric rhythm with the 1981 pop song “Da Da Da” by Trio. As the crowd gathered closer in delight, movers took on the provocative attitude of seasoned supermodels, displaying graphic and colorful plates, pillows, and textiles.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
Theatrical Set Design and Music Illuminated Lavish Home Furnishings by Hermès
On the other side of the room, the mood shifted as a captivating, abstract theater set unfolded. Romance blossomed on cloud-like seating, while individuals in dreamlike states rested in plush bedding with geometric patterns—while a chandelier-like sculpture of blankets twirled over their heads. A mesmeric moon shone over the space while dancers performed awe-inspiring acrobatic feats across the room with chairs, dishware, and other lavish home furnishings.
A Pony Dance, inspired by Hermès’s beloved equestrian roots, further transformed the stage into a collective dance floor. The lyrical show space came to a close as a utopia of dreamlike hospitality, inviting each and every guest to experience the magic of daily life designed by Hermès.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
Photo © Will Matsuda, courtesy of HERMÈS.
Who is Philippe Decouflé?
Philippe Decouflé is one of the terrible children of French dance, this new wave which at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s will shake up the established milieu. Interpreter for Alwin Nikolais, Karole Ermitage or Régine Chopinot, he will quickly impose his score. A choreographic collage resembling cartoons on stage, a dance that does not take itself (not too) seriously. Having become famous thanks to his unforgettable staging of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Albertville Olympic Games in 1992, Philippe Decouflé is today an artist of international renown. These ceremonies had even earned him the expression “découfleries” designating his singular art of the encounter between the worlds of circus, image and dance. The imaginary, the fantastic and the phantasmagoric are indeed summoned.
Influenced by television, cinema, opera, advertising, circus arts, cabaret, musicals, contemporary art, this extremely acclaimed jack-of-all-trades takes dance out of its elitist yoke and creates successful machines with notably Codex (1986), Triton (1989), Decodex (1995), Shazam! (1998), Octopus (2010), Contact (2014), Panorama (2012), Nouvelles Pièces Courtes (2017) and this year, 2022, Stereo. He also directed commissioned works such as Iris, for Cirque du Soleil (Los Angeles, 2011).
In 1983, Philippe Decouflé founded the DCA Company to mark Vague Café for which he won the Bagnolet Dance Competition. As an emerging choreographer marked by film, comic book and circus, Philippe Decouflé immediately attracted attention for his resolutely humoristic and off-beat tone. The success of Codex in 1986 launched a career which continued with La Danse des sabots commissioned as part of the Bleu Blanc Goude parade along the Champs Elysées to mark the 200 years of the French Revolution. Then came Novembre and Triton which marked the first collaboration with Philippe Guillotel whose extravagant costumes were to have a lasting effect on the world of the choreographer.
In 1992, Philippe Decouflé designed the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 16th Winter Olympics in Albertville (France). International recognition immediately followed and established Decouflé as a major creative force at the crossroads of the circus arts, image and dance. After a tour in South America in 1992 with Triton, he devised Petites Pièces Montées the following year as a tribute to Méliès. In 1995, moved to permanent new premises with his company in a former boiler room (“La Chaufferie”) in Saint Denis, North of Paris. With rehearsal rooms, offices and technical workshops, La Chaufferie soon became a laboratory of insatiable creation spawning multiple productions for many artists. – Source
